Regional tourism organisation Destination Queenstown (DQ) and Christchurch web company Cabbage Tree Creative have led the comprehensive redevelopment of www.queenstownNZ.co.nz which has taken 10 months to complete.

The new-look site, driven by consumer testing to be focused on visitor needs, features strong social media integration, stunning imagery and videos both on the home page and throughout the site, and a new Travel Planner that enables users to easily save products and events and build their own itineraries.

The website includes three new dedicated business sections - Media, Trade, and Conference & Incentive – as well as a fully optimised Mobile Directory, English, Spanish, German, Japanese, and Chinese translations, and an improved DQ Members area.

Destination Queenstown’s General Manager of Marketing Graham Budd said the new website served two key purposes.

“Our website currently attracts over 60,000 visitors a month so it’s one of our most comprehensive and cost-efficient international tools to showcase and market the destination.

“Our strategy was to create a world-class interactive portal to inspire, motivate and inform visitors about all the reasons they should come to Queenstown as well as deliver business more efficiently to our members by making it quick and easy for users to get to individual product listings.”

Mr Budd said the improved translations, including a new Chinese version of the site, would also appeal to a broader audience, and with Facebook and Twitter feeds on the home page as well as RSS feeds and mobile web content, social media engagement and functionality have been vastly improved.

“The content of the entire site has been revised and we’ve added more than 600 new articles and 300 new images which showcase our stunning scenery and range of things to do.  It’s dynamic, visual, easy to navigate and has an improved search tool.”

Mr Budd said that the project had been a major undertaking for the organisation and the whole team was excited about its capabilities.

“It’s a much more consumer-centric experience now and the extra online resources we’ve added will help streamline our business to business engagement.  Media, Travel Trade and prospective Conference & Incentive clients will now have their own one-stop shop where they can access sector-specific information about Queenstown.”

Cabbage Tree Creative Director Lawrence Smith said his company was very proud of the new site.

“This was our biggest website development project to date and we’re absolutely delighted with the results,” he said.

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